Get the word out

I haven’t posted on the disaster in Joplin, frankly because I find it overwhelming. But since tmi3rd asked nicely (ok, he didn’t ask nicely, he just ordered everyone to do it), I’m passing on the word.

Please Repost: Heart of Missouri United Way (Columbia, MO) has stepped up and established the Joplin Tornado Relief Fund. 100% of donations will go directly to Joplin United Way, with ZERO overhead. Follow the link, call 573-443-4523, or text “Joplin” to 864833 to donate.

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, quoting a line from the Psalms, They hated me wiuthot a cause. The serpent is perpetually close upon the heel of harmony. From the beginning to the end, the serpent pursues with hatred the spiritual idea. In Genesis, this allegorical, talking serpent typifies mortal mind, more subtle than any beast of the field. In the Apocalypse, when nearing its doom, this evil increases and becomes the great red dragon, swollen with sin, inflamed with war against spirituality, and ripe for destruction. It is full of lust and hate, loathing the brightness of divine glory.Revelation xii. 5. And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to His throne.The conflict with purityLed on by the grossest element of mortal mind, Herod decreed the death of every male child in order that the man Jesus, the masculine representative of the spiritual idea might never hold sway and deprive Herod of his crown. The impersonation of the spiritual idea had a brief history in the earthly life of our Master; but of his kingdom there shall be no end, for Christ, God’s idea, will eventually rule all nations and peoples imperatively, absolutely, finally with divine Science. This immaculate idea, represented first by man and, according to the Revelator, last by woman, will baptize with fire; and the fiery baptism will burn up the chaff of error with the fervent heat of Truth and Love, melting and purifying even the gold of human character. After the stars sang together and all was primeval harmony, the material lie made war upon the spiritual idea; but this only impelled the idea to rise to the zenith of demonstration, destroying sin, sickness, and death, and to be caught up unto God, to be found in its divine Principle.Revelation xii. 6. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God.Spiritual guidanceAs the children of Israel were guided triumphantly through the Red Sea, the dark ebbing and flowing tides of human fear, as they were led through the wilderness, walking wearily through the great desert of human hopes, and anticipating the promised joy, so shall the spiritual idea guide all right desires in their passage from sense to Soul, from a material sense of existence to the spiritual, up to the glory prepared for them who love God. Stately Science pauses not, but moves before them, a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, leading to divine heights. If we remember the beautiful description which Sir Walter Scott puts into the mouth of Rebecca the Jewess in the story of Ivanhoe, When Israel, of the Lord beloved, Out of the land of bondage came, Her fathers’ God before her moved, An awful guide, in smoke and flame, we may also offer the prayer which concludes the same hymn, And oh, when stoops on Judah’s path In shade and storm the frequent night, Be Thou, long-suffering, slow to wrath, A burning and a shining light!Revelation xii. 7, 8. And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought, and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.Angelic officesThe Old Testament assigns to the angels, God’s divine messages, different offices. Michael’s characteristic is spiritual strength. He leads the hosts of heaven against the power of sin, Satan, and fights the holy wars. Gabriel has the more quiet task of imparting a sense of the ever-presence of ministering Love. These angels deliver us from the depths. Truth and Love come nearer in the hour of woe, when strong faith or spiritual strength wrestles and prevails through the understanding of God.The Gabriel of His presence has no contests. To infinite, ever-present Love, all is Love, and there is no error, no sin, sickness, nor death. Against Love, the dragon warreth not long, for he is killed by the divine Principle. Truth and Love prevail against the dragon because the dragon cannot war with them. Thus endeth the conflict between the flesh and Spirit.Revelation xii. 9. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.Dragon cast down to earthThat false claim that ancient belief, that old serpent whose name is devil (evil), claiming that there is intelligence in matter either to benefit or to injure men is pure delusion, the red dragon; and it is cast out by Christ, Truth, the spiritual idea, and so proved to be powerless. The words cast unto the earth show the dragon to be nothingness, dust to dust; and therefore, in his pretence of being a talker, he must be a lie from the beginning. His angels, or messages, are cast out with their author. The beast and the false prophets are lust and hypocrisy. These wolves in sheep’s clothing are detected and killed by innocence, the Lamb of Love.Warfare with errorDivine Science shows how the Lamb slays the wolf. Innocence and Truth overcome guilt and error. Ever since the foundation of the world, ever since error would establish material belief, evil has tried to slay the Lamb; but Science is able to destroy this lie, called evil. The twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse typifies the divine method of warfare in Science, and the glorious results of this warfare. The following chapters depict the fatal effects of trying to meet error with error. The narrative follows the order used in Genesis. In Genesis, first the true method of creation is set forth and then the false. Here, also, the Revelator first exhibits the true warfare and then the false.Revelation xii. 10 12. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.Paean of jubileeFor victory over a single sin, we give thanks and magnify the Lord of Hosts. What shall we say of the mighty conquest over all sin? A louder song, sweeter than has ever before reached high heaven, now rises clearer and nearer to the great heart of Christ; for the accuser is not there, and Love sends forth her primal and everlasting strain. Self-abnegation, by which we lay down all for Truth, or Christ, in our warfare against error, is a rule in Christian Science. This rule clearly interprets God as divine Principle, as Life, represented by the Father; as Truth, represented by the Son; as Love, represented by the Mother. Every mortal at some period, here or hereafter, must grapple with and overcome the mortal belief in a power opposed to God.The robe of ScienceThe Scripture, Thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many, is literally fulfilled, when we are conscious of the supremacy of Truth, by which the nothingness of error is seen; and we know that the nothingness of error is in proportion to its wickedness. He that touches the hem of Christ’s robe and masters his mortal beliefs, animality, and hate, rejoices in the proof of healing, in a sweet and certain sense that God is Love. Alas for those who break faith with divine Science and fail to strangle the serpent of sin as well as of sickness! They are dwellers still in the deep darkness of belief. They are in the surging sea of error, not struggling to lift their heads above the drowning wave.Expiation by sufferingWhat must the end be? They must eventually expiate their sin through suffering. The sin, which one has made his bosom companion, comes back to him at last with accelerated force, for the devil knoweth his time is short. Here the Scriptures declare that evil is temporal, not eternal. The dragon is at last stung to death by his own malice; but how many periods of torture it may take to remove all sin, must depend upon sin’s obduracy.Revelation xii. 13. And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child.Apathy to occultismThe march of mind and of honest investigation will bring the hour when the people will chain, with fetters of some sort, the growing occultism of this period. The present apathy as to the tendency of certain active yet unseen mental agencies will finally be shocked into another extreme mortal mood, into human indignation; for one extreme follows another.Revelation xii. 15, 16. And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood, after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth.Receptive heartsMillions of unprejudiced minds simple seekers for Truth, weary wanderers, athirst in the desert are waiting and watching for rest and drink. Give them a cup of cold water in Christ’s name, and never fear the consequences. What if the old dragon should send forth a new flood to drown the Christ-idea? He can neither drown your voice with its roar, nor again sink the world into the deep waters of chaos and old night. In this age the earth will help the woman; the spiritual idea will be understood. Those ready for the blessing you impart will give thanks. The waters will be pacified, and Christ will command the wave.Hidden ways of iniquityWhen God heals the sick or the sinning, they should know the great benefit which Mind has wrought. They should also know the great delusion of mortal mind, when it makes them sick or sinful. Many are willing to open the eyes of the people to the power of good resident in divine Mind, but they are not so willing to point out the evil in human thought, and expose evil’s hidden mental ways of accomplishing iniquity.Christly warningWhy this backwardness, since exposure is necessary to ensure the avoidance of the evil? Because people like you better when you tell them their virtues than when you tell them their vices. It requires the spirit of our blessed Master to tell a man his faults, and so risk human displeasure for the sake of doing right and benefiting our race. Who is telling mankind of the foe in ambush? Is the informer one who sees the foe? If so, listen and be wise. Escape from evil, and designate those as unfaithful stewards who have seen the danger and yet have given no warning.The armor of divinityAt all times and under all circumstances, overcome evil with good. Know thyself, and God will supply the wisdom and the occasion for a victory over evil. Clad in the panoply of Love, human hatred cannot reach you. The cement of a higher humanity will unite all interests in the one divinity.Pure religion enthronedThrough trope and metaphor, the Revelator, immortal scribe of Spirit and of a true idealism, furnishes the mirror in which mortals may see their own image. In significant figures he depicts the thoughts which he beholds in mortal mind. Thus he rebukes the conceit of sin, and foreshadows its doom. With his spiritual strength, he has opened wide the gates of glory, and illumined the night of paganism with the sublime grandeur of divine Science, outshining sin, sorcery, lust, and hypocrisy. He takes away mitre and sceptre. He enthrones pure and undefiled religion, and lifts on high only those who have washed their robes white in obedience and suffering.Native nothingness of sinThus we see, in both the first and last books of the Bible, in Genesis and in the Apocalypse, that sin is to be Christianly and scientifically reduced to its native nothingness. Love one another (I John, iii. 23), is the most simple and profound counsel of the inspired writer. In Science we are children of God; but whatever is of material sense, or mortal, belongs not to His children, for materiality is the inverted image of spirituality.Fulfillment of the LawLove fulfils the law of Christian Science, and nothing short of this divine Principle, understood and demonstrated, can ever furnish the vision of the Apocalypse, open the seven seals of error with Truth, or uncover the myriad illusions of sin, sickness, and death. Under the supremacy of Spirit, it will be seen and acknowledged that matter must disappear.In Revelation xxi.1 we read: And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.Man’s present possibilitiesThe Revelator had not yet passed the transitional stage in human experience called death, but he already saw a new heaven and a new earth. Through what sense came this vision to St. John? Not through the material visual organs for seeing, for optics are inadequate to take in so wonderful a scene. Were this new heaven and new earth terrestrial or celestial, material or spiritual? They could not be the former, for the human sense of space is unable to grasp such a view. The Revelator was on our plane of existence, while yet beholding what the eye cannot see, that which is invisible to the uninspired thought. This testimony of Holy Writ sustains the fact in Science, that the heavens and earth to one human consciousness, that consciousness which God bestows, are spiritual, while to another, the unillumined human mind, the vision is material. This shows unmistakably that what the human mind terms matter and spirit indicates states and stages of consciousness.Nearness of DeityAccompanying this scientific consciousness was another revelation, even the declaration from heaven, supreme harmony, that God, the divine Principle of harmony, is ever with men, and they are His people. Thus man was no longer regarded as a miserable sinner, but as the blessed child of God. Why? Because St. John’s corporeal sense of the heavens and earth had vanished, and in place of this false sense was the spiritual sense, the subjective state by which he could see the new heaven and new earth, which involve the spiritual idea and consciousness of reality. This is Scriptural authority for concluding that such a recognition of being is, and has been, possible to men in this present state of existence, that we can become conscious, here and now, of a cessation of death, sorrow, and pain. This is indeed a foretaste of absolute Christian Science. Take heart, dear sufferer, for this reality of being will surely appear sometime and in some way. There will be no more pain, and all tears will be wiped away. When you read this, remember Jesus’ words, The kingdom of God is within you. This spiritual consciousness is therefore a present possibility.The Revelator also takes in another view, adapted to console the weary pilgrim, journeying uphill all the way. He writes, in Revelation xxi. 9: And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will show thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife.Vials of wrath and consolationThis ministry of Truth, this message from divine Love, carried John away in spirit. It exalted him till he became conscious of the spiritual facts of being and the New Jerusalem, coming down from God, out of heaven, the spiritual outpouring of bliss and glory, which he describes as the city which lieth foursquare. The beauty of this text is, that the sum total of human misery, represented by the seven angelic vials full of seven plagues, has full compensation in the law of Love. Note this, that the very message, or swift-winged thought, which poured forth hatred and torment, brought also the experience which at last lifted the seer to behold the great city, the four equal sides of which were heaven-bestowed and heaven-bestowing.Spiritual wedlockThink of this, dear reader, for it will lift the sack-cloth from your eyes, and you will behold the soft-winged dove descending upon you. The very circumstance, which your suffering sense deems wrathful and afflictive, Love can make an angel entertained unawares. Then thought gently whispers: Come hither! Arise from your false consciousness into the true sense of Love, and behold the Lamb’s wife, Love wedded to its own spiritual idea. Then cometh the marriage feast, for this revelation will destroy forever the physical plagues imposed by material sense.The city foursquareThis sacred city, described in the Apocalypse (xxi. 16) as one that lieth foursquare and cometh down from God, out of heaven, represents the light and glory of divine Science. The builder and maker of this New Jerusalem is God, as we read in the book of Hebrews; and it is a city which hath foundations. The description is metaphoric. Spiritual teaching must always be by symbols. Did not Jesus illustrate the truths he taught by the mustard-seed and the prodigal? Taken in its allegorical sense, the description of the city as foursquare has a profound meaning. The four sides of our city are the Word, Christ, Christianity, and divine Science; and the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there. This city is wholly spiritual, as its four sides indicate.The royally divine gatesAs the Psalmist saith, Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King. It is indeed a city of the Spirit, fair, royal, and square. Northward, its gates open to the North Star, the Word, the polar magnet of Revelation; eastward, to the star seen by the Wisemen of the Orient, who followed it to the manger of Jesus; southward, to the genial tropics, with the Southern Cross in the skies, the Cross of Calvary, which binds human society into solemn union; westward, to the grand realization of the Golden Shore of Love and the Peaceful Sea of Harmony.Revelation’s pure zenithThis heavenly city, lighted by the Sun of Righteousness, this New Jerusalem, this infinite All, which to us seems hidden in the mist of remoteness, reached St. John’s vision while yet he tabernacled with mortals. In Revelation xxi. 22, further describing this holy city, the beloved Disciple writes: And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.The shrine celestialThere was no temple, that is, no material structure in which to worship God, for He must be worshipped in spirit and in love. The word temple also means body. The Revelator was familiar with Jesus’ use of this word, as when Jesus spoke of his material body as the temple to be temporarily rebuilt (John ii. 21). What further indication need we of the real man’s incorporeality than this, that John saw heaven and earth with no temple [body] therein ? This kingdom of God is within you, is within reach of man’s consciousness here, and the spiritual idea reveals it. In divine Science, man possesses this recognition of harmony consciously in proportion to his understanding of God.Divine sense of DeityThe term Lord, as used in our version of the Old Testament, is often synonymous with Jehovah, and expresses the Jewish concept, not yet elevated to deific apprehension through spiritual transfiguration. Yet the word gradually approaches a higher meaning. This human sense of Deity yields to the divine sense, even as the material sense of personality yields to the incorporeal sense of God and man as the infinite Principle and infinite idea, as one Father with His universal family, held in the gospel of Love. The Lamb’s wife presents the unity of male and female as no longer two wedded individuals, but as two individual natures in one; and this compounded spiritual individuality reflects God as Father-Mother, not as a corporeal being. In this divinely united spiritual consciousness, there is no impediment to eternal bliss, to the perfectibility of God’s creation.The city of our GodThis spiritual, holy habitation has no boundary nor limit, but its four cardinal points are: first, the Word of Life, Truth, and Love; second, the Christ, the spiritual idea of God; third, Christianity, which is the outcome of the divine Principle of the Christ-idea in Christian history; fourth, Christian Science, which today and forever interprets this great example and the great Exemplar. This city of our God has no need of sun or satellite, for Love is the light of it, and divine Mind is its own interpreter. All who are saved must walk in this light. Mighty potentates and dynasties will lay down their honors within the heavenly city. Its gates open towards light and glory both within and wiuthot, for all is good, and nothing can enter that city, which defileth. . . . or maketh a lie. The writer’s present feeble sense of Christian Science closes with St. John’s Revelation as recorded by the great apostle, for his vision is the acme of this Science as the Bible reveals it. the light which Christian Science throws on the Scriptures by substituting for the corporeal sense, the incorporeal In the following Psalm one word shows, though faintly, or spiritual sense of Deity: PSALM XXIII [DIVINE LOVE] is my shepherd; I shall not want. [LOVE] maketh me to lie down in green pastures: [LOVE] leadeth me beside the still waters. [LOVE] restoreth my soul [spiritual sense]: [Love] leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for [LOVE] is with me; [LOVE’s] rod and [LOVE’S] staff they comfort me. [LOVE] prepareth a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: [LOVE] anointeth my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house [the consciousness] of [LOVE] for ever.